Update: I was unfortunately not aware of Shamus Young's severe criticism of Fallout 3 available here to link in the original piece and I regret that. It dovetails rather nicely with what I've written and it's much better executed than my piece. I strongly recommend anyone...

Planetside 2 is a Free to Play FPS featuring persistant, massive scale inter-continental warfare, with up to 2000 concurrent players per continent. At launch PS2 features 3 continents: Amerish, Esamir, and Indar, with much more planned to be released over many years of support for the game.

The game is faction based, with 3 opposing factions - The Terran Republic, Vanu Sovereignty, and New Conglomerate, each with their own arsenal, playstyle, and lore - whose goal is to capture and control territory or entire continents. You have multiple characters per account so you can try different factions.

Territory gives you resources, which are used to spawn vehicles - tanks, troop transports, ATVs, fighters, etc, and control over major facilities, as well as continents, gives bonuses to the controlling faction, such as reducing cost of supplies or vehicles, reducing the overheat time on turrets, the ability to spawn a certain class of vehicle, etc. Resources are awarded on a tick basis for the continent you are currently occupying.

What are the factions?

Terran Republic – Like a militaristic government, the Terran Republic uses its Imperial authoritarian might to impel humanity to peaceful coexistence through any means necessary. Strength in numbers, focusing on quickly delivering soldiers and bullets into their enemies with more traditional weaponry.

New Conglomerate– A loosely connected group of rebel factions and idealistic freedom fighters, the New Conglomerate fight against the hegemony of the Terran Republic and the fanatical alien influence of the Vanu Sovereignty. Heavy hitting weaponry, highly armored vehicles; less accurate and maneuverable.

Vanu Sovereignty – A technocratic Empire that believes humanity can only evolve by rediscovering and tapping into the lost technology of an ancient alien race. Extremely accurate, featuring laser weaponry with the absence of bullet drop, and highly maneuverable vehicles.